Securing Your Carpet or Vinyl Floor: A How-to

Whatever your flooring choice may be, securing it is one of the most important steps in keeping your carpet or flooring in to place. But, how do you know what your options are when it comes to the final steps of securing your new floor. And how do you secure your new floor without having to hire someone to do it for you? Finding the right product and securing your new floor isn't as difficult as one might think, it does however, require some patience and the right type of product to get the job done. Here's How:

Carpet

If you are laying carpet down, one of the ways you can secure your floor is with the use of tackless strips. Tackless strips are thin pieces of wood that have tacks in them. The tack side of the wood is position so that it faces the wall. Depending on what type of floor you are laying the carpet over will depend on the type of nails you will need to use. Use wood nails for floors made of wood or masonry nails for floors made on concrete. Please keep in mind that with tackless strips you will need to hammer them into place before you lay down your padding or carpet.

To secure the seams of the carpet you will need to allow for enough adhesive seam tape for the entire length of the carpet's seam. You will want to center the tape with the adhesive side facing up and seal the adhesive with a seam iron, then lay the carpet seam over the tape. Next, lay the second side of the carpet over the first side to make an invisible seam. Finally, smooth down the seam to make sure the carpet is secure to the adhesive tape.

Once you have laid down all of the carpet you can secure it to tackless strips. You can do this by using a knee kicker tool that will allow you to fasten the edges of the carpet onto the tackless strip and power stretcher to stretch the carpet to the tacks, and secure it into place. Work from one corner to the next in sections and then from one wall to the wall across from the other.

Vinyl Flooring

Carpet is not always the number one choice when it comes to flooring options for some homeowners. And with as many wonderful alternatives to carpet available, who can blame them?

Vinyl flooring is one of the easiest alternatives available for flooring. It's not only durable, it's also easy to install.

In order to secure vinyl flooring, you will need to use an adhesive glue to secure any seams that are visible. You can do so by making a straight edge guideline using a pencil and marking alone the seam's edge. Then, spread the adhesive glue along the marked guideline and press the vinyl flooring into the adhesive glue. Be sure you remove any excess adhesive that may have seeped from the seams with a dampened rag. Finally, you will need to seal the seams with a seam sealer. You can take this one step further by adding metal trim at the entrance and doorways.